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Beleaguered Estes Park feels the pain of neighboring park's closure

Aspen trees in Estes Park showing off their fall colors along highway 7 on September 28, 2103. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

ESTES PARK — The shuttering of the federal government Tuesday closed national parks, hurting tourism across the country, but the pain was especially acute in Estes Park, in the heart of a region still struggling to its feet after last month's floods.

Visitors to neighboring Rocky Mountain National Park coming from across the globe expressed deep disappointment and anger. Town residents and worried business owners joined them with feelings of fading hope for the local economy this year.

"It's taken out our whole fall," Tina Bernacchi, owner of Mountain Shadows Resort on Riverside Drive, said of the one-two punch of floods and the park closures. "I'm just hoping the tourists who can come will still come; everybody has had tons of cancellations."

With Trail Ridge closed on the west, the only route to Estes Park is the Peak to Peak Highway north from Black Hawk. Visitors who bear the unusually busy route could enjoy a Colorado autumn fully ablaze in color and herds of elk roam within view.

The scene normally draws tens of thousands of visitors to the town of about 6,000 each weekend this time of year.

Within a month snows will close Trail Ridge Road, the spine of the park. Businesses will face a winter that could seem longer and colder with less money in the bank because of an act of God and a failure to act by Congress.

"Economically, there's not much left here this year," said T-shirt vendor Sam Wofford, as he loaded boxes in a van downtown. "If the park doesn't reopen this week, I'm done until next year."

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Vacations in the park were cut short Tuesday morning, when visitors were asked to leave.

Adriette Vander Wyst and Rod Jansen, visitors from Holland, did not understand how a political spat over healthcare closed a park.

"We saw a couple who said they're closing the park," Jansen said behind the wheel of a rented Coachman RV parked at the visitors center. "We had no idea. We said why?"

For David and Debbie Oliver, visitors from Missouri, the impact of the park closure was especially hard.

They pulled over near the roadblock at the closed gate to the park, and David shouted to the two park rangers, "We're as upset as you are."

David, 71, has been visiting Rocky Mountain National Park since he was 8 years old, and he's brought his five children many times.

"He wants to be buried here," Debbie said.

A University of Missouri professor, David has stage 4 cancer, and he said he felt certain this week would be last time to see the mountains and deep, craggy canyons that inspire his soul.

"It's not right," he said of the congressional inaction that closed the park. "These parks belong to the people. I don't think they know what they're doing, all the people they're hurting directly and indirectly."

According to the report, Rocky Mountain National Park had nearly 3.2 million visitors in 2011. The visits generated $196.1 million in tourism spending and supported 2,742 jobs with a direct income of about $72 million.

During the month of September the park sees an average 520,000 visitors, said park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson. The month's visits are second only to July, she said.

Colorado is home to four national parks: Rocky Mountain, Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
Parks, however, are only part of the picture. About 36 percent of Colorado's land mass is under the federal government's control — in parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, recreation areas, historic sites, grasslands and conservation areas.

All are subject to the shutdown, in one way or another.

The loss to places such as Estes Park and national tourist attractions are going to be a gain for other towns and state and local parks, said Colorado State University economist John B. Loomis.

"The question is, if not Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, where are those people going? Because they're going somewhere," he said. "That might mean they'll go to Winter Park, instead, or on up I-70 to some of the ski towns. Estes Park isn't the only place people see Aspens turn." "We have a lot of economic impact when that road closes."

Though spared the devastation of the floods, businesses in Grand Lake on the west side of the Rocky Mountain Naitonal Park were also concerned and fearful for their bottom lines, mayor Judy Burke said.

"For us, it's never a good time for that park to be closed," she said. Tourists and visitors coming in from Trail Ridge Road, she said, supply about 80 percent of the annual sales tax revenue for the town of about 450 full-time residents.

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